Zimbabwe: Zanu-PF Winking in the Dark

Following its conference in Gweru, Zanu PF is running around with its tail up telling the country it will win the next election.

"Even the imperialist media is sensing the Zanu PF victory and they are now hammering the MDC-T as if they are not together in the business of selling out the country," the Sunday Mail proclaimed this week. "All the promises and lies won't work anymore."

Who is it that has been making promises and telling lies, using every conceivable inducement to win votes? Special funds and provisions have been dangled before a hungry nation while the language of the past, featuring Western "puppets", has been taken off the shelves and dusted down for yet another failed exercise in deceit.

The hard truth is the country is fed up with empty promises the former ruling party scrapes together when elections loom. Also conspicuous are the luxury vehicles that have become the symbols of a corrupt and compromised political elite.

Equally compromised is a media hijacked by the state and happy to parrot the songs of praise their political masters sing.

They childishly talk of "puppets" and pretend the nation is under threat from imagined "enemies". It is no coincidence the most reviled "enemies" are the country's biggest donors!

They are the ones who invariably fill the national begging bowl every year because we have decimated agricultural production by pursuing policies the late Eddison Zvobgo described as ruinous and racist.

While the state media sees its duty as misleading the public on the true condition of the nation, the independent media must counter lies with truth at this critical juncture in our national life. We are in dire straits because the economy is exploited by a parasitic class for private benefit.

The whole point of Sadc intervention was to stabilise our economy and foster growth.

President Robert Mugabe's remarks in Gweru on 100% indigenisation do the absolute opposite. They create a climate of uncertainty. While Zanu PF is busy sabotaging the economy with voodoo policies the rest of the region is enjoying investment and growth.

The big question in all this is: What if Zanu PF does win next year? What will they do to rescue the economy when they have effectively destroyed it? And will they be the agents of better governance when they have been busy arresting and incarcerating people like the Woza women for exercising their democratic right to assembly.

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has of late been showing us his party is certainly not the party of excellence it claims to be. There has been a singular lack of strategic thinking in the MDC-T in recent months illustrated by failure to engineer electoral accommodations.

The MDC-T needs to wake up and exercise leadership.

Zanu PF is finished as a political party with nothing to offer Zimbabwe. They are tired yet still obsessed with power. What can they do now that they had every opportunity to do over the past 30 years? Let's help them to go quietly.

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